


And the Nymph sang

by HanaSheralHaminail



Series: Stories of Women who love Women [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Big Gay Love Story, F/F, Falling In Love, Fantasy, Friends to Lovers, Nymphs & Dryads, Short, Short One Shot, Useless Lesbians, but I swear it's brief, enchanted forest, nymph, soft, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 15:39:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15513048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HanaSheralHaminail/pseuds/HanaSheralHaminail
Summary: Some time long ago, an ancient nymph saved the life of a human child.Thirteen years after, the child is a woman, and they meet under the shadow of a yew tree.Their friendship is like a dance, warm and bright and dizzying, but it stretches from mortality to eternity, tearing wounds into the patterns of time. And then it melts into love...





	And the Nymph sang

**Author's Note:**

> This story is sweet, gentle and warm. There is a sliver of angst and nostalgia too, but I promise it will be soft enough to make up for it!
> 
> It was inspired by the song 'Willow Maid' by Erutan (look it up on YouTube, it's awesome!), but very little is left of that story but the fact that there is a Maiden in a Tree. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the read and thanks for giving it a chance!

_**And the Nymph sang** _

 

It’s summer when they first meet. The woodland is enveloped in the softest light, as golden and sweet as honey clinging on the hem of a cup, and the trees grow strong and rich, their leaves trembling slightly from a gentle breeze. Birds sing and cicadas chirrup – a symphony perfected since the dawning of time and through the passing of seasons; spring has left behind her mantle on the grass and scattered bees and flowers in her wake, bringing a rainbow of colours to rest in the deepest heart of the forest.

It is a wonderful day… and yet the child cries as she wanders aimlessly from trunk to trunk, barely managing to navigate the intricate web of gnarled roots and fallen branches that block her way. She is scared, or hungry, or lost, or maybe some combination of the three. Her voice breaks as she wails, and her breath is hitching, laboured.

From her yew tree, a nymph watches her.

She’s never cared for humans: they are a dangerous species, a people in constant search for power, striving to break free from mother nature and become something _other_. She doesn’t understand them, or their desperate desire to leave a mark upon the earth when they are nothing but a passing fancy if compared to the eternity of time.

And yet how everlasting their mistakes can be.

To the nymph, who is as ancient as the forest itself, the joys and pains of human generations mean very little, and she is wary of them, because they do not come from the rich dirt or the clear water or even the life-giving rays of the sun: humans are the spawn of fire and wind and all that is treacherous and cruel.

But this is a _child_ that whimpers wretchedly at her feet and wets the thick bark of her tree with scalding tears. A tiny girl curled up in an even smaller bun into the high grass, begging for a help that will never come. The nymph pities her, for she is still innocent, still pure, and she still belongs to the order of things… Though the spirit knows well what this seemingly harmless human will grow into, she can’t leave her to die.

It is beneath her.

And maybe this child will remember, and be grateful, and prove herself worthy of life.

Slowly, the nymph slides down until she is standing beside the girl, naked feet pressed on the largest root of the tree she is bound to and lush green hair flowing freely around her. She has yet to make a sound, and she finds she has to lean over and place a hand gently above the infant’s head to capture her attention.

The child startles and fixes a wide, frightened stare upon her. If there is one thing the nymph has always thought puzzling is the expressiveness of human eyes: they are so fickle and ever-changing, so full of light and words truer than all they will ever say. As she returns the infant’s gaze, she sees it morph quickly into one of absolute wonder; unshed tears make her hazel irises seem even brighter than what they already are, and the silly, toothless smile she is shown restores a sliver of hope into the spirit’s ancient heart.

“Hello,” the child says cheerfully. “Are you an angel?”

The nymph shakes her head and reaches for the little hand that is readily proffered. “I am the guardian of this forest.”

“But they say there’s bad spirits here.”

“As with all things, child, the spirits are neither bad nor good,” she corrects patiently, “They simply _are_.”

While the girl ponders this, scrunching her upturned nose in concentration, the nymph plucks a red seed from her yew’s branches, and touches it to her lips, blows air around it; she makes it into a protective charm, then gives it to the little human. “You do not belong here,” she says, “Hold this, and you will find your way home.”

The infant looks up at her and then down at her new treasure, and her face burns with awe and bewilderment. “Will you come with?” she asks expectantly.

“I cannot leave my tree.”

“Oh.” She looks dismayed, but recovers soon, and suddenly the nymph finds her legs trapped in the circle of the child’s fragile arms; tentatively, she brushes her fingers through her mussed-up hair. “Thank you, miss!”

The spirit pushes her away gently. “Be brave, and you will not be harmed,” she promises. “Fare thee well.”

“Goodbye!”

As she watches the girl run away with renewed confidence, the nymph smiles a little. She won’t see her again, they belong in two different worlds, but she wishes her happiness and prosperity, hoping that she’ll make the most of her handful of years… And that she won’t lose her light – the delicate thread that links her to nature and to earth and brings love to her soul – among the humans.

* * *

It takes another thirteen years for them to meet again.

* * *

Nothing changes in the heart of the enchanted forest – the seasons brush past it and leave it intact, untouched by time and mortality even as its creatures grow old and die and come to life again, painting the endless cycle that is the source of its magic. The spirits are as powerful and distant as ever: some have dared say they are trapped in their own fixed magnificence, in their blind contemplation of a world that doesn’t belong to them anymore, but they still take pride in their purity.

They estrange themselves from all things human, unaware that _human_ is what the forest will become in a few short decades, if it can survive the wave of destruction that already laps at its feet. Defeat is inevitable and near, but the spirits do not see it.

After all, they are keepers of life and light, and no creature in their right mind would ever cause them to come to harm.

Thirteen years are as swift as the blink of an eye for the spirits, but they are enough for the little girl to learn all that can be learned about the forest of _Anam Caillte_. The passing months turn her into a strong young woman and an outcast, feared and scorned and shunned by most for her independency and insolent courage. Ever since the day she was lost into the cursed woods and returned to tell the tale of a nymph who has saved her, she has been bewitched.

The people say her soul was stolen by evil spirits, and that for this she has no family, no name, no future. They say she is beautiful, but that hers is a dangerous beauty, a tainted beauty, something to be wary of rather than celebrate; she has become fiendish, they warn: that is why she still won’t marry, and why she dons the clothes of a man and cuts her fiery hair short and walks the forbidden paths.

They call her Alwen, _friend of elves_.  

In truth, they know nothing about her but what their prejudices tell them, and because of this they miss the warmth that follows wherever she goes, and the fierce devotion she can give and the secrets she will never reveal. Not to them – not to the humans: they wouldn’t understand even if she did. No, her secrets are only for a person to hear, the nymph who has given her back her life, the nymph that she will never forget.

The people believe she was forever lost in the woods, but she was found instead, reborn from compassion and magic and the faintest sliver of faith a spirited being has decided to keep in her and in what she would become. Alwen is grateful for the fateful day that set her apart from the village and its hideous customs – and if she has to be branded a witch and a danger for daring to belong to no one but herself, so be it.

She is proud and she is bold and she is untamed.

 _Anam Caillte_ is her refuge and her kingdom, and within it, she thrives.

* * *

As the shadows grow longer on the ground and the sun begins to pour amber light upon the treetops, Alwen looks up at what little sky is visible and smiles at the thin, blazing clouds and at the birds flying to their nests and at the occasional early owl getting ready for the night.

She has no fear of the dark, she has lost it a long time ago, and besides, what is darkness if not the world as seen through the eyes of the moon?

The human walks stealthily, jumping from root to root and from trunk to trunk. She is resplendent in her confidence. Taking a deep breath to enjoy the taste of spring in the air, she keeps on marching, and though she is alone in the forest, she doesn’t let any of her weariness show. It does not do to present an appearance of weakness – better to pretend than to be caught in hesitation. And besides, she still has a few hours in her.

Today might be the day she finds _her_.

Oh, how she hopes it is. She’s combed _Anam Caillte_ tree by tree, week after week, searching for its heart, where she knows her nymph to live. It has taken her thirteen years, but she’s close now, very close… She has never left a debt unpaid, and this one… This one is too big, too important for her to let go.

On the day of her tenth birthday she had sworn she would not rest until she’d granted at least one of the nymph’s wishes – no matter the cost. Alwen Aonar belongs to herself – but her life does not, and she wishes to change this.

Even though she’s sure, in her soul, of the spirit’s good nature, she refuses, as a matter of principle, to let anyone have that kind of power upon her. And, regardless of what the other people say, she does have a sense of honour.

It is deep into the night that they finally meet again.

* * *

The nymph is laying on the lowest branch of her yew tree: her mind is drawn inwards even though her eyes are on the wide expanse of the universe, and she is but the shell of herself. When the human calls upon her, she slides down to float languidly in front of her, more out of boredom than true interest.

“Do you remember me?” Alwen asks, breathless from the magnificence of her. She is even more beautiful than what her memories tell her – but perhaps it is just that she has grown, and looks at her differently, with the gaze and the heart of a woman, not a child.

Made of sky and earth, she appears to the human like a vision torn from a dream: ebony skin smooth as a lava flow and scattered in fiery green dots – not freckles, but close to it – and light comes from them, casting an ethereal glow about her.

Alwen’s first impression is of fragility.

This spirit is frail. Dying. Though her eyes are shining and piercing, though her hair – a wild tangle of soft vines and budding leaves – is rich and vibrant, though she is surrounded by an aura of pride – that kind of ancient, vanishing pride that speaks of past splendour – she is brittle, like glass waiting to crack and shatter into a thousand tiny shards.

When she speaks, it is with the voice of the wind. “Why should I remember a human woman?”

“Perhaps you remember a child,” Alwen suggests. She takes a step forward, then draws both hands behind her neck so she can untie the leather string she wears hidden beneath her rough shirt. Dangling from it is the red seed from the yew tree; in the relative darkness, its dim light pulses and flickers.

A breath of recognition passes over the nymph’s face, and for a moment it truly seems as if she is alive and well and there, with her. She makes no motion to retrieve it, though, and returns to her distant indifference. “That long has passed for you? You were a child but yesterday.”

Alwen smiles and nods and in her heart she secretly pities the immortal who is forced to exist in a world that will forever be foreign to her, a confusing clamour of constant change and life and death that can never touch her. How lonely it must be, and no wonder she hides in the depths of the forest where all is frozen and everlasting.

“What is it you desire?”

The human cocks her head to the side, stretches her arm towards the spirit, palm up, with the red berry in its centre. “I’ve come to repay my debt.”

“There is no need,” the nymph says calmly, and gently reaches out to coax the woman’s fingers closed around the seed. Her skin is cool, alien, electrifying. “It is a gift. You may keep it.”

Swallowing unsteadily, Alwen puts the necklace back on, not bothering to slide it under her clothes this time. “Then at least, tell me if there’s something I can do for you.”

For long minutes the only sounds breaking the quiet are the jolly chirrup of the crickets and the lively gurgle of the nearby stream; a veil of sadness has fallen discreet upon the spirit’s face, and for a fleeting instant Alwen can swear she’s seen the cracks on her figure from her doomed future, but it’s gone so fast she’s left to wonder if she has simply imagined it.

“There’s nothing you can do for me,” the nymph tells her gravely. “Return to your people, little human.”

“I have no people,” the woman says, raising her chin quite irreverently, though it only serves to darken the spirit’s gaze and her mood.

Slowly, deliberately, she lifts her dark, delicate hand to place it over the human’s head, into her fluffy russet hair. “I am very sorry to hear that.”

Alwen hardly dares move under so gentle a touch. “Can I come back?” she whispers, caught under those surprisingly heavy eyes.

The nymph smiles briefly then, just a quick, easy-to-miss curve of her green-tinted lips. “You may do as you please,” she answers, with the barest hint of warmth in her voice.

And just like that, she is gone.

* * *

Two days after, the human comes to sit under her tree; she brings fruit, and the sugary scent of it drifts upwards to where the nymph is lying. Perhaps it’s this familiar and cherished smell that puts her in a benevolent mood, or the fact that the light around her is changing in shape and colour, growing richer with every hearty laughter that rings in the air… She does not know, and yet she finds it difficult to be as detached as she’s used to being around mortals.

She can’t help but be intrigued by this stubborn young woman who so insists in seeking her out: she gives the appearance of one without a care in life, and still it’s impossible not to notice the depth of feeling barely hidden in her transparent eyes.

“Tell me about your world,” the spirit suggests after a long silence. Centuries have passed since she has last interacted with a human, and the rules of polite conversation have fled her mind; besides, what little she remembers would probably be obsolete by now, a string of foreign conventions that have lost all meaning.

“Eh.” The young woman snorts a little, and the wind ruffles her hair; the nymph is strongly reminded of an open flame, and a strange shiver – not fear per se, but maybe the anticipation of fear, a thrill that wakes the lymph in her veins – runs down her spine. “Not much to be proud of, honestly.”

Perturbed by the feelings this creature seems to be stirring inside her, the spirit is almost biting when she replies: “I am aware.” For some reason, she finds herself regretting the outburst; after all, this particular human has done nothing to offend her, and it would be foolish to condemn her for the crime of her entire species… wouldn’t it? “I wish to know about the little things, the things you cherish,” she says, gentling her tone.

The woman hums low in her throat, a pleasant sound, then abruptly stretches her arm upwards, waving a strawberry under her branch. “Here, have one,” she offers, as if the immortal were one of her kind, to share food with.

Surprised and uncertain how to interpret the gesture, the nymph takes the red fruit and brings it to her lips, savouring the sour-sweet taste that she hasn’t indulged in in forever. She doesn’t need food, and in truth it’s been very long since she’s rid herself of the useless desire for nourishment, but somehow this strawberry is different.

It is a gift, not a selfish act.

When the human passes her another, she hides it away in her tree to examine later.

“The things I cherish, uh,” the woman muses after a little while. She slides down into the grass so she’s lying on her back directly beneath her, and the nymph turns around in her branch to peer at her. “Well, I love the sky and the birds and the leaves and the rain.” She laughs, spreads her limbs far and away, taking up all the space she possibly can. “But I guess you like those, too.”

“I do.”

The human closes her eyes, and begins to speak in a strange lulling tone, as if she’s recounting a tale. “Then… there’s the smell of fire and sweat and iron when you’re tired after a day working at the forge.”

Settling herself more comfortably into the tree, the nymph too shuts her eyes and retreats into her mind, trying to imagine the alien things described so fondly.

“There’s the sound of hooves clacking on stone streets, and the song of swords dancing together, like silver, if it could talk.”

At that the spirit wants to reply that she has heard silver speak at the beginnings of time, when life was uncertain and deities walked the earth, but she holds her tongue, captivated by the woman’s alluring voice. She has always known, deep inside her, that humans are natural charmers, that their words are like poison tainting the soul to bend it to their will, and yet…

How come she is not fleeing? Why does she still listen?

“There’s the taste of freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven and crackling in your hands as you break it…” She pauses, then adds cheerfully: “I’ll bring you some next time. If I can find it, I’ll put aniseed in it!” A frown passes over her freckled face. “Can you eat bread?”

“If it please you to share,” the nymph says very quietly.

“Oh, it does!” the human hastens to assure her, sitting up in a blink, the better to plant her wide, compelling eyes on her. “I hardly have people to share with.”

The spirit nods slowly. Only then does it occur to her to ask: “What is your name, human?”

“They call me Alwen,” she readily confesses, apparently pleased by her interest. “What’s yours?”

A light breeze ruffles the leaves of her yew, and the spirit thinks about how better to answer the question. “ _Sharea_. It is the name of my tree.”

* * *

Hidden within her yew, the nymph sings every day at the same hour. The human discovers this by chance one late summer morning when she gets to the forest earlier than expected. A thin rain drizzles cheerfully all around her, and the trees seem to glow with it, drinking in the precious liquid and making it into their shield and regal mantle.

Alwen has always had a soft spot for rain – any kind of rain, no matter how inconveniencing it might be. Rain is beautiful, rain is proof that life will find a way, and it washes the world clean of its dirt and its pain and its evils, lulling it into a peaceful, stormy night that will bring it to a new birth.

Today there’s an unknown sound melting seamlessly into the natural symphony of raindrops kissing the woods, and it gives the woman pause. It could almost be a voice – but the highs and lows it reaches link it to earth herself, and it seems to resonate within the trunks and the leaves and deep into the mud. It comes from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Or it could very well be inside her mind, for she feels it ring in her very bones, and it grasps her soul to hold it prisoner, shakes it and molds it and changes its colour, and never has a prisoner been so willing to have their freedom stolen from them…  

Then she sees her; the nymph standing in a circle of branches, hair tinted yellow and orange with the season, gifting her heart to the wind that scatters it carelessly in strings that coil like smoke, if smoke could quiver with emotion and capture even the rain into its spell.

The funny thing is, she _recognises_ it; remembers it from her childhood when it crawled in her veins and made her blood sing too, gave her a sense of endless wonder and trust in the world and communion with all things alive. A miracle. A saving grace – the hidden music that has kept her strong and true to herself and helped her face every hardship.

Alwen stares, entranced, until the song is over. And then she comes back to hear more and more and more whenever possible, hiding in the proximity of the enchanted yew for fear of disturbing Sharea in her ritual. It doesn’t take long for her to realise it is what has kept the forest so lush and so well-defended as the centuries progressed.

This creature has cared for their world since the day of its birth…

It humbles the woman to be allowed to speak with her. And then there’s pride, a pride that comes with the knowledge that even though she is merely one in countless humans who have dared seek her out, she – and only she – is the one who has managed to catch her attention.

She now wears the little red seed that has always been her dearest possession around her head, like a crown.

* * *

In winter the song changes. It becomes softer as the snow begins to fall, soothing the earth of its fatigue and entrusting her to the waiting arms of sleep. The forest grows quiet and contemplative under its candid armour, and no outsider dares wander too far into its reclusive realms… the exception being, of course, Alwen.

The nymph has come to expect her, anticipate her presence even. She knows it is dangerous and she knows it is useless, to entertain this fondness she feels for one who is but a fleeting flame under a deluge, but she shushes her worries away with every smile the human offers her and with the thought that she is young, so young… Not a rose, not a dragonfly to live but seven months and then vanish into nothingness.

So many winters have yet to freeze the world before the final one carries her into death.

“If you want, you can climb up and listen,” Sharea invites, sensing the human’s presence nearby. She is aware the woman has been watching her from a distance for weeks now, and though she finds it very polite of her not to interrupt the Song for all Ages, she would rather have her closer. “I would not mind.”

Alwen shows her an unrepentant grin as she walks up to her tree – and it truly does not seem she is at all embarrassed to have been discovered there, silently spying on her ritual – and clambers up with far more grace than a human should ever have.

“Are you not afraid of falling?” the nymph asks when she finally settles up on the highest branch and sprightly kicks her legs into the void.

“Wouldn’t you catch me?” the woman teases over a gentle chuckle that has a tiny cloud forming over her flushed face.

Sharea regards her thoughtfully, with the plaid cloak she’s wrapped herself into to fight off the chill of the winter, and the shimmering snowflakes clinging to her fiery hair to find their fitting end there. “Perhaps,” she says.

They share another, complicit laugh, and suddenly the human’s hand is brushing over her shoulder; when she does not retreat from the contact, the human grows bolder and stretches her arm around her to pull her into a half-embrace.

The nymph feels the softness of her frail body and the heat of the blood rushing beneath her skin, and is left speechless by how utterly _moving_ it is. The life encased within her is so powerful, so bursting with energy and will that it seems to spill out of its confines and into her touch, to be passed on to those fortunate enough to receive her attention.

“Say, Sharea…” Alwen murmurs into her ear, pulling away a little, enough that they can comfortably look at each other while still sitting very close. “This song of yours. What does it mean?”

Stretching her long naked arm to watch the snow dot it in white, Sharea answers slowly, measuring each word: “It is the cry of the earth when she gives birth; the chant of the trees that grow; the melody of the birds of the sky and the animals of mud and grass and sand and water.”

She retracts her hand and places it upon the woman’s. “Once upon a time, humans heard it too,” she murmurs softly, and for some reason she finds herself wanting to justify her leaving them out of the equation. “It touched them. It _was_ about them, too.”

As the nymph stares into Alwen’s earnest, receptive eyes for the first time in centuries she feels listened to, perhaps even cared for. It is a foreign emotion which she cannot fully process; nonetheless, she cherishes it for its rarity. “Now… now it is different. They are lost. I cannot reach them.”

The human intertwines their fingers and smiles her brightest smile yet. “You can reach me.”

The spirit knows this to be profoundly true, and she is grateful. “Yes.”

* * *

It’s only when the snow starts to melt that Alwen first realises she has fallen. Perhaps she should have known long before… But throughout the white, muted winter she is blissfully ignorant, caught in the wonder of this new, unbelievable friendship, in the million tiny things about it that make her so, so happy. And as snowdrops poke their dewy heads up and shake their petals to greet the timid sun of early March, the human and the nymph laugh together and lie side by side upon the tree, fingers entwined and knees touching.

In retrospect, it’s quite obvious, and yet no less shocking for it.

* * *

They are dancing slowly beneath the enchanted tree to the tune of a canzonetta Alwen’s poor skills are surely butchering, even though Sharea is far too polite to comment on it. She seems to be enjoying herself, anyhow, barefoot in the mushy snow, the ghost of a smile barely curving her lips.

As she holds the nymph’s sinuous body – the feel of _her_ so strange, so alien, cold skin that’s pulsing with life, alight with an energy that has a colour and a taste – the human shudders privately at the enormity of so sudden a realisation.

It hits her hard, like a blow in the stomach, and yet it’s sweet as freshly-harvested honey, golden and rich and dizzying. She has a fleeting impression of inevitability: as if there could have been no other outcome but this love that has seized her and holds her prisoner.

It has crept up on her on tiptoes, silent as a stray cat, but now… Now she can see how it has grown with every word they have shared, with every time they’ve locked eyes in silence. She knows the difference between a passing fancy and this powerful thing that’s taken over her, knows it has nothing to do with the momentary infatuation she’s felt the first time she’s laid eyes on the nymph… This couldn’t be more different.

It’s like touching fire, or ice – an extreme sensation, one that should hurt and yet is curiously appealing, for the decadent beauty of it or maybe the thrill of danger it brings. There’s a certain sense of impending doom in falling for an immortal, the nagging warning that it’s a bad idea, a very bad idea.

Such a thing is not allowed, and for good reason.

Once as a little girl she heard the town priest talk about He who dwells in Heaven; he went on and on describing the shape of so sublime a vision, and yet Alwen found that as hard as she tried, she couldn’t picture it. Sublime has never had a face for her… until now.

In equal parts terrified and ecstatic, she pulls Sharea closer and drinks in her earthy scent, grinning into her neck when she copies the gesture, probably thinking it part of the dance. If only time would freeze there, trapping them forever in this perfect instant – the promise of spring hanging in the air along with the excited songs of the early birds, and the unspoken agreement of mutual love never to be manifested wrapped around them like a blanket.

If only.

Alwen loves the nymph, but she will never tell. It would be cruel, and she’s anything but; she won’t allow her dearest friend to come to harm because of her… Her time on this world is limited and brief, she can see this as clearly as she sees the melting snow, while the spirit will endure till the forest is burnt down to ashes, perhaps even after.

Seeking her out was a thoughtless, selfish act on the human’s part.

Now, watching the nymph’s liquid green eyes follow the flight of a robin, she understands.

* * *

Throughout the winter, for every time she has visited Alwen has brought a gift: small, ordinary things like pretty buttons, a wooden bear and a spoon, a silvery chain to wrap around her wrist and the first knife she made in the blacksmith’s workshop. The nymph has collected them all, as tokens of their improbable friendship or maybe as proof of the woman’s existence; now they rest hidden in the very heart of the tree, a secret treasure never to be shared.

Today she brings a sword.

Sharea greets her with a smile, relieved beyond belief, for the sun has set and risen seventeen times since she has last come to see her; these weeks that should have been but the blink of an eye in the eternity of her existence have shown her just how vital the human’s presence has become: without her the hours go by slowly, flat and empty and devoid of meaning. It leaves her wondering how it was, before, that she could be so alone with herself and barely notice the centuries pass her by.

“Hello, little human.”

Alwen stares at her in silence, for once lost for words; there is no trace of liveliness on her face – and though her cheeks are flushed, it is with the cold, and not the mirth that so often has swept the nymph off her feet and made her head spin with its pure, unbridled strength. She looks sober, despondent somehow.

“Is something wrong, my friend?” Sharea asks, dropping gracefully down from her tree into the melting snow. She reaches out her hands to grasp the woman’s warmer ones, pulling her close, as if to shield her from whatever it is that’s plaguing her. “Have you been hurt?”

“This is for you,” Alwen says curtly, ignoring her question and stepping around her to place the sword against the yew’s ancient bark. “The people are not as scared of the woods as they used to be.” Her eyes are dark, secretive. She twines her fingers and presses her back to the tree – the nymph can feel the touch, distant and welcome. “Someone might think to come here and disturb you, take you for their own.”

A shiver slithers down the immortal’s spine as she re-joins her friend, standing close enough that their arms brush. “And won’t _you_ be here?” she blurts out, before the absurdity of the request can stop her – why would a human serve as protector to her? What right does she have to demand this?

“I can no longer stay in Airedale.” A rueful smile crosses the woman’s face, and she gently grasps Sharea’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

She does not say why, and the nymph doesn’t ask. She thinks she understands, anyway. Alwen has never belonged with the others, _she who has been blessed by the spirits_ , the witch girl, the one who sings with the birds and runs with the foxes, daughter of the wind and _Anam Caillte_. “Where will you go?”

“To visit the land.” She stretches her left arm above, engaging in the lovely mannerism that is so vital to her species. “I want to see London, and Paris, and Firenze. They say things are different in the cities.”

“I would imagine they are. How long will you be gone?”

Because she _is_ coming back, isn’t she? This is not their last farewell. It cannot be – it is too soon, far too soon. Sharea is not entirely surprised to find herself unprepared for such a separation.

“I don’t know,” the human murmurs evasively. “Travelling is dangerous, especially if one is alone.”

“I wish it were permitted for me to accompany you,” the spirit offers impulsively. “But I shall keep you close in my mind.”

Alwen nods and touches their fingers together. “It’s been an honour knowing you,” she tells her with honesty, “I’ll never forget you.” She pushes off the yew and Sharea follows her as far as she’s allowed. “Goodbye, my lady.”

The nymph does not say ‘I’ll miss you’, because it would be pointless: she cannot change the human’s mind, nor is she entitled to feel what humans, in their transience, do – if she were she would have dissolved in grief and nostalgia as so many had done in the mountains of Greece and Italy centuries before. She’s heard tales of gods falling for the love of mortals, tearing their hearts and souls out after they died, melting in springs and mountains and echoes. Betraying their nature to be with the people, they believed that a few, meaningless years of blind happiness could be worthier than an eternity spent in communion with all that was alive.

She has never understood nor condoned such folly – until now.

If she let herself _miss_ things, she would break, she knows, she _feels it_ in the strange tightening of her chest and this irrational desire she has to go against the wishes of fate to ensure her own are met.

Yet she is not so far gone that she does not think of the pain that would befall her beloved should she choose such a dangerous path.

So Sharea merely nods, and reaches out with her hands to once more touch the woman’s burning cheeks. The soft texture of that fragile skin will never cease to amaze her, and she cradles her close, leans in to brush trembling lips to her forehead. “Then fare thee well, my friend.”

Alwen smiles at her, and for a moment it’s as if her eyes are brimming with affection and unspoken emotions that hang in the air, coiling like chains around them. But humans are free, inconstant beings that cannot be tied to one place for too long; as she loosens her hold of her friend the nymph is painfully aware of this.

She watches Alwen walk away into the forest, and when she’s gone, Sharea looks down at her own feet, rooted on the tree that gives her life. Suddenly the woods are bare and cruel and so terribly empty – in a blink the aura of safety surrounding her vanishes, and she sees herself trapped, caged into a solitary existence that leaves no room for pleasures and comforts and _contact_.

Her mind flies back to the endless millennia she has endured, but she cannot even tell them apart, she knows nothing of what has come to pass in all that time… The seasons are circular and repeat as do the beats of her green heart, ever unchanging, ever the same. And she has made no effort to retain that which cannot return – no effort to remember, no effort to care.

Her life has been empty. Should she have taken it upon herself to save the memories of human history, of human pain… of human love? Should she have taken it upon herself to learn of their ways and their poetry and their art? Their dreams, their fears, their follies? The thoughts they throw to the wind like fallen petals, should she have collected them, shielded them from oblivion?

How can it be her place when not even humans care enough to preserve their own past?

And yet, as the sky darkens, stretching long shadows above her, Sharea feels barren.

_I will miss you._

It comes unbidden, and refuses to leave.

 _I miss you_.

The nymph cannot even find it in her to be frightened by the truth.

* * *

It is under the blinding sun of Italy that finally Alwen breaks.

Steady, unmoving, she listens to the sound of the sea, an eerie melody many take for granted, so used they are to the twists and caprices of that turquoise expanse of water that it becomes to them nothing but white noise, easily ignored. To her, the voice hidden beneath the waves tells stories no mortal should know, stories stolen from the skies of ages past.

Lives and wishes and joys and pain that the sea, greedy thief, terrible judge of all things passing, swallows, century after century, second after second, until nothing remains but a distorted, pale shadow.

Alwen sees them all.

Behind her stand the ruins of an ancient Roman city, marble bent and tainted by the sheer forgetfulness of the world, and like a wounded animal they lie, awaiting the fateful blow that will erase them from this earth. She has walked among them, under fallen arcs and through crumbling villas and over cracked streets, wondering at their faded beauty.

Their melancholic silence has followed her here where there is only sand and water and wind, a lingering cloud of grey grief that clings to her clothes and her hair and her heart. She feels longing for the people who once were and are no more. She feels longing for the slow death of the city – longing and bitterness and guilt.

Oh, to be immortal in a time like this.

To be immortal in a world of dying things.

She had thought to find solace in the distance, distraction in her travels, but all she has is the reproachful whisper of the waves and a regret that refuses to fade. She trembles and falls kneeling into the silvery sand, breathing its rich scent that is so different from that of home.

Home is _Anam Caillte_ , and perhaps the others are right when they say the forest has stolen her soul, because Alwen’s soul still clings to the trees and the wind and the birds and the passionate rush of the rivers. Alwen’s soul still holds on stubbornly to her love, to the memory of liquid eyes and skin as dark as yew and a cool, soothing touch.

There is a certain irony in that she has managed to detach herself from all things human – things that bound her to her land of fierce, untamed nature – and it’s a nymph who’s calling her back, a creature suspended in a time that does not exist, a time in which she could never truly belong.

Her friend.

She shouldn’t have left as she had, so suddenly and with no promise to return. It was an act of cowardice on her part, nothing more. After all, if Sharea had been ready to face whatever pain – whatever separation and however near – awaited them, then so she should have been.

If Sharea had allowed her into her world and her mind and her touch, then what right did she have to refuse such a gift when all she wanted – still wants so ardently it burns her – was to sink into her familiar embrace and cradle her close, never to let go?

Water laps at her naked feet as she gathers her thin cloak about her, watching the sun trace the inconstant dance of her shadow. It seems so pointless so suddenly. Her whole life she has spent searching for the companionship the nymph so willingly offered her, for the soft looks and knowing complicity they shared.

And yet she’s fled from them.

Why?

What does she fear?

Does she fear the fact that she will age and Sharea will not? That throughout the ages her beloved will endure, unchanged and wrapped in her mantle of ethereal spring, but irrevocably tainted by the taste of mortality and loss and mourning?

She remembers the nymph telling her that in the past, many men and women have tried to take her from her tree; that it would kill her; that they believed they could pluck a flower from the ground and expect it to keep eternally fresh, eternally beautiful; pleasing to look at and smell, left to languish in a crystal bowl trapped between four walls.

Alwen would build a house around her tree and make it their home – she would still be free to move, free to leave, but she would have Sharea to return to, collect presents for, belong to. She would have Sharea to cherish and to love and to care for. She could go for work in the nearby villages… Perhaps she’d be able to afford a goat, or even a cow.

They could be happy, they could be close.

 _If Sharea forgives me this defection_ , the human thinks to herself, _then maybe we can start again._

The image of a future she has painted in her mind feels so right, so alluring it’s impossible to refute; nor does she have the strength or the wish to shy away from its truth anymore. It is a choice she cannot make alone. The call of Anam Caillte has reached her even across Europe: its power all-consuming, it stretches around her, captures her completely.

She will not fight it.

Clearing the sand from her clothes, she slowly backs away from the wide expanse of the sea and its glare that is still fixed on her, still judging her for her mistakes and hesitation and humanity. But this admission of weakness brings a sense of peace and understanding, and she is finally sure in her decision.

She turns towards the sun, and this time when her gaze lands upon the ruins she smiles.

…

The nymph’s song is muted that spring. She has known it was fading for decades now, but it is only in the loneliness of her human’s absence that she truly wonders what will become of her as the ages progress and change is the one constant that is left to contemplate.

She is not needed anymore – a relic of a glorious past that will never return, a time when the deities walked the earth and nature triumphed – and the chant she throws at the wind has melted into a sickening emptiness, barren acceptance that there is no purpose, no meaning to what she does.

No sense to her existence.

Every moment of her eternity is wasted in the sickening wait of the fall that is all she can see.

Still she sings. She sings for the birds and the sky, she sings for the earth and her children, she sings for the rocks and the mountains, she sings for the ocean; and she sings for the humans. She sings for the humans like she hasn’t done in centuries, she sings of their growth and their pride and the terrifying power they hold over her forest.

And so, as she sings to them, they come.

* * *

At first they are afraid. But they stop soon enough, when they realise she cannot chase them, cannot harm them, cannot flee. She is a fancy prisoner, there for the taking, a thing to own and to parade around like a much-coveted prize.

She does not speak to them. Those days are well behind her, and it was foolish of her to pretend she could restore them, foolish to expect they could endure in the first place. She cannot be touched anymore, cannot be reached: retreating deep into her mind, she watches the humans study her and thinks of the sword that is hidden beneath her branches.

Never in her life has she considered killing. She has threatened and cursed and shunned, but never killed: it is against all that she stands for, all that she is. She should have thrown the sword – cruel image of what human nature allows, what human nature endorses – away as soon as she’d laid eyes on it.

But it is a gift, bestowed with care and love and a goodbye. A parting gift she refuses to relinquish.

She holds it, stares at her own reflection in the hard, cold metal. Occasionally – for brief, wild moments – she almost makes herself believe she can see her friend there, looking back at her with sprightly eyes and a mischievous grin. She catches herself tracing the shape of these evanescent glimpses, wanting to preserve them somehow, even though she knows they’re nothing but memories and wishful thinking.

No matter how tender, how vulnerable she feels, she cannot find it in her to resent or even regret ever having met Alwen; the love that still blooms within her bosom is not nearly as destructive as she had feared: it’s soft, heart-warming, a gentle awareness that keeps her company with the hint of a sweet, sweet ache.

She welcomes it as she once had her beloved visitor.

The men that linger by her branches want to rip her from it. They woo and promise and hover; they bring broken flowers and trinkets, riches she does not need nor understand, offer lands and power in exchange of her hand. They do not see that her land is the forest, her riches the earth and the wind, her yew the beginning and the end of her world.

She sends them away without so much as a second glance. “I could never belong to you,” she says. “I could never follow you – I cannot leave this place, nor do I wish to.

“Hear me, now: I am but the song of this dying forest, the voice of the trees, the cry of nature. You cannot collect me. You can only listen.”

Spring melts to the sound of Sharea’s sorrowful song, and when summer explodes in a victorious dance of colours and scents and rainfalls, the melody carries still, hanging from the dewdrops and the quivering leaves and the rabbits that burrow into the lush grass.

It is beautiful.

She cannot partake in it.

She sings to the humans and for the humans, and finally, Alwen comes.

* * *

They kiss.

A thousand times they kiss.

Sunlight clings to their twined figures, shields them in a mantle of gold as it plunges into the horizon, far away where the ocean reaches for it, welcomes its rest into its waves. The nymph falls quiet, her song frozen in the wake of her wonder and love, but the birds and the branches and the animals pick it up. Soon it is all around them, shaking the forest anew.

Alwen holds her close and listens.

* * *

And then, after sorrow, peace and belonging.

* * *

_If you go into the woods you will find a house, curled around an ancient yew tree. If you open its crooked door and sit by the empty fireplace, among the leaves and the wildflowers that climb all the way to the cracked ceiling, you will see the memory of a woman and a nymph, who shared the eternity of sixty years of life._

_You will see them hold hands by the window, see them kiss into the grass, laugh at the sky and eat sweet-tasting fruit over a blanket. You will see fiery hair turn white with age, golden skin become soft and lined. You will see an ebony hand wrapped tightly around a calloused, fragile one, fingers entwined, a small berry hanging from a worn string that binds their wrists together._

_You will see them step slowly away from the yew tree, deep into the forest._

_You will see them share a silent embrace._

_They will disappear in the evening mist, like visions, but know that they were there, once, so long ago._

_It is said their souls never parted, and that they wander the world the way swallows do._

_Perhaps you might meet them._

_If so, they might share the secret of the nymph’s joyful song with you, let you hear its tunes that still rush, riding the wind, searching for a home._

_And they will show you a smile, tell you a tale of companionship and trust, and of the love that healed earth’s wounds._

* * *

 

 

 

The beautiful song by Erutan: [Willow Maid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E52rxz2sjRs) 

If you like my writing, you can visit my writeblog here: [weaver-of-fantasies-and-fables](https://weaver-of-fantasies-and-fables.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> So, was it good? I hope so! 
> 
> Leave a trace of your passing to make me happy!


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